Trinacria

The common approach, asserted by all guides, is that this triangular symbol represents Sicily due to the resemblance between its shape and that of the island. However, a closer examination reveals a more complex truth.

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Originally, often dated to three thousand years before the common era, this symbol likely originated in the East (India) in its primitive form of three legs joined at a central point. This symbol spread into Greek culture and reached Sicily almost at the start of the Hellenic presence in the 8th century BCE. It can be found on the bottom of a Greek vase preserved in the richly endowed Archaeological Museum of Agrigento.

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It was the Romans, who settled in Sicily after the Punic Wars (3rd century BCE), that transformed the primitive symbol with successive additions. First, they added the head of the gorgon Medusa as the central anchor for the three legs. Then came the addition of three wheat ears, referencing the transformation of the territory into the "breadbasket of the Roman Empire."

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Sicily lost its autonomy as an independent kingdom around 1477, when it came under the rule of a unified Christian Spain. The Spaniards, who never forgot their dominance over the Roman Empire after the death of Constantine, revived the ancient Roman symbol of Sicily, which they called Trinacria, derived from the Greek meaning "three promontories."

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The Roman symbol, in its final version, depicts three legs anchored on the head of Medusa, with her serpent hair and the wings of Pegasus, from which three wheat ears emerge. This symbol would henceforth be displayed on a red and gold background, the colors of Spain.